Saoirse Ronan “totally” identified with the pressures of her character in Mary Queen Of Scots.

The Irish actress portrays historic figure Mary Stuart, who took to the throne of France at just 16 years old before reigning over Scotland for almost 25 years until July 1567, in the upcoming period drama.

Also starring in the film is Australian star Margot Robbie as Queen Elizabeth I, Mary’s cousin, who ruled over both England and Scotland.

Discussing the feature, 23-year-old Saoirse was surprised by the amount of similarities she had with her alter ego.

“Weirdly, I could totally identify with Mary,” she told Collider.com. “I found that with Mary and Elizabeth, and with any woman in power, they remind me of actors. There’s so much hand-shaking that you need to do. There’s a public persona that Mary had to put on with people, and she had to have so much strength from such an early age, and that’s something I could totally identify with, being someone who’s grown up doing this earlier than you would usually. She was thrown into that world very young, too.”

Saoirse began her career over a decade ago and was nominated for an Academy Award at the tender age of 13 for her performance in Atonement, making her the seventh youngest actress to be nominated for an Oscar.

Before Mary Queen of Scots, Saoirse can be seen in Greta Gerwig’s indie flick Lady Bird, capturing the turbulent relationship between a high school senior and her overbearing mother, played by Laurie Metcalf.

Despite the stark differences between Mary and Lady Bird, the blonde beauty was still able to embrace the latter role, explaining, “She’s got a lot of blind faith. She is impulsive while also being incredibly thoughtful and considerate. One of the biggest lessons from playing this character and just from talking about her, since we started doing press, is that people aren’t just one thing.”